Here’s a carefully-worded question from Jill from Atlanta, Georgia:
My granny hates the word “guts”. When I used to say it in front of her she screwed up her face into a big frown and made a groan of displeasure. I was surprised that hearing the simple word “guts” would produce such a strong reaction in anyone.
Helen, please answer me this: what words, if any, gross you out like “guts” grosses out my granny?
Sit down, Jill; this is going to take AGES. ‘Thang’. ‘Peeps’ (as slang for ‘people’, not the third person singular form of the verb ‘to peep’). ‘Slither’ when someone means ‘slither’. ‘Trendy’. ‘On trend’, for being just as bad as ‘trendy’ but with pretensions of seriousness. ‘Narnia’. I’m going to have to stop here as all these are inciting a visceral reaction of horror; but readers, head for the comments and bravely tell us the words that make you swallow back the brain-bile.
Often it is hard to strike up a conversation with somebody you don’t know very well, but not so when you meet Kieran from Bedford:
My dad is a gynecologist and most people seem to know this!
Answer me this: what should I say to someone when they tell me my dad delivered them?
Furthermore! What should I say to women who say they’ve been to see my dad?! The most recent was a dinner lady at school (just as you imagine!), which is not an image I want to imagine!
I’ve found myself in many an awkward situation due to this!
Yes – on your back with your pants off and your feet in stirrups, Kieran! Ho ho ho.
Readers, go to the comments, please, and give Kieran an all-purpose rejoinder with which he can deflect anybody who is keen to discuss how his father has stared up their intimate passages.
Anyway, Kieran, you should be proud of your father – he must be doing a great job, considering how eager these people are to talk about these matters upon which they would usually be so coy.
You don’t win a prize if you go to the comments to help answer this question from Jane from London, but she stands to win a job AND a wig. So help her out, please. She says:
I am a law student and am trying to qualify as a barrister. In order for this to happen I have to fill in lots of horrible application forms and attend lots of interviews in the hope that at the end of it someone will give me a wig, gown and a job. Most of the application forms are pretty standard and not a problem. But one or two of them have ‘joke’ questions, which frankly I don’t know how to go about answering.
For example, one says “If you were on Mastermind, what would your specialist subject be and why?” Answer me this: what the fuck are they looking for when they ask this question? As I don’t believe I’m located anywhere on the autistic spectrum, I don’t have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the wing-spans of birds, or of the Arsenal Football team 1976-1984, or similar! I’m a normal person with normal levels of interests and I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of anything!
So what do I do? Do I make up something that I think lawyer-y types would find impressive (and risk them asking me about it at interview). Do I just tell the truth? Or do I just have a stab at something I quite like, like ‘the works of Radiohead’ and leave it at that?
You are asking the wrong person, Jane: my Mastermind subject would be “How to poison job applications so you definitely won’t make it through to the interview stage”. Which, now I think upon it, is a sad waste of all that education I received. I should have been able to opt for “Anglo-Saxon pronouns” or “mid-period Henry James novels”, but you have to go for where your real strengths lie.
Plus: with his usual acumen, Olly proposes how to transform a psychotic neighbour problem into a business opportunity; Helen’s parents are being very thrifty with the internet, so that the IP addresses don’t all run out on their account; and we should clarify that Martin the Sound Man’s former job, which he describes as ‘making a man with a tube up his penis laugh’, was in the field of medical physics, not stand-up comedy for catheter fetishists.
Because one pot is never enough, there’s also more about Müller Yogurt on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android), including their contribution to West Midlands athleticism, and their retrograde marketing wheezes. They might be 116 years old, but they’ve still got it.
If you haven’t already, please do take a punt on our Top 20 (!!) album, The Answer Me This! Jubilee, comprised of fifty-seven minutes of all-new material in anticipation of the Queen’s jubblies. You can also hear us on the latest episode of Ewan Spence’s ESC Insight podcast – no, that’s not ESC as in the Electrical Safety Council or the Essex Skating Club, but the Eurovision Song Contest. Click here to listen, and hear how we rated some of the songs vying for Eurovisionary Glory this year.
After all that, do remember to send us your QUESTIONS with which we will fuel this new series of AMT: aim voicemails at the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Time for a laugh/”I don’t get it. Oh! Ha” thanks to Tom in Glasgow:
When I was around eight years old, I overheard my mum telling her pal a quirky little joke that made them snigger a lot. The joke was:
Q: what do you do if an elephant comes through your window?
A: Swim.
I didn’t get the joke at all, but I always remembered it, and even told it to other people several times!
I am now in my thirties and actually have children of my own. I am ashamed to say that I have just reminisced in my brain about that puzzling day when I was eight and have just ‘GOT THE JOKE’ (hehehe snigger).
Answer me this: have you ever heard a joke and taken a long, or as in my case, a very fucking long time to get the punchline?
Oh, plenty! But luckily, in the podcast we can edit out the twenty-year pause.
Readers, please give us all a chuckle today by going to the comments and telling us a joke that we might not get for a couple of decades, or unless our mums explain it to us.
I am shortly going to be best man at a wedding in which my ex-girlfriend will be attending. When we broke up she took it upon herself to ‘borrow’ £200 off me and not pay it back, as she claims she can’t pay what she hasn’t got. Should I use my best man’s speech to name and shame the thieving b@£$h in an attempt to get her to pay up?
NO. Unless the ongoing friendship of the groom is worth less to you than £200.
Instead, keep under cover. Start by slipping a threatening note into the little box of sugared almonds or whatever wedding favour they have laid at her place setting. Ramp up the menace by slipping a dead bird under her napkin. Then wait for her outside the Posh Portaloos with a crowbar.
Break-ups and revenge: two topics which frequently collide. And here are two questions upon those two topics, so help us out by offering your own advice to our lovelorn questioneers, the first of whom is Dave in Halstead, Kent:
The lady that I was dating for five years, and engaged to for two of those years, decided that we had grown apart. This was after a period of stressful months where we both had job worries and problems finding somewhere to live. The feeling was not the same and I tried everything (within reason) to win her back, and failed. I’m 23 and this is the first proper long-term relationship I have had.
So I decided to go to New York and blow all the money I saved for our wedding on a 5* hotel for a week to get over it, as a start. So answer me this: how would you recommend getting over a difficult break-up, and when is it acceptable to start dating again? And also what cool stuff in New York would you recommend?
I have only ever spent two days in New York, and I’m not sure the Museum of Jewish Heritage will lift your spirits; but as aforementioned, readers, go to the comments and pen a potted travel guide for Dave. And while you’re at it, counsel him upon ways to recover from the emotional fall-out, because while it is excellent that he is spending the wedding pot on a luxury trip for one, we don’t want him to be attacked by melancholia and loneliness while he’s there. Particularly not on top of the jetlag, which only compounds misery.
Next on the subject, Sean from Cheltenham keeps it quick and painful:
My boyfriend of six months was cheating on me with another boy. I want revenge. What should I do?
Though David above is trying the ‘Living well is the best revenge’ tack, Sean might need something a little less dignified. Readers, you bitter and shameless bunch, unleash your inner Glenn Closes in the comments.
Just two days after release, The Answer Me This! Jubilee is TOP 20 in the iTunes album chart!* So thankyou very much indeed to everybody who has bought it already; and if you feel moved to do the same, click here to buy it off iTunes. UPDATE: it’s now available on Amazon too, and even better, at our own AMT Store.
In return for your £2.49 outlay (or equivalent in your native currency), you receive 57 minutes and 55 seconds of all-new Answer Me This!, themed around Her Maj’s upcoming Diamond Jubilee.
Amongst the many questions royally addressed are:
• Could the Queen get away with murder? • What’s the deal with all those 21-gun salutes? • Does the Queen have a mobile phone? • Are you really supposed to pronounce ‘regina’ like ‘vagina’? • Who has seen the Queen’s tits? • Where can I run into Prince Philip on an average day? • What’s the point of the monarchy, anyway? • And what the bloody hell is going on with those nearly nude guys in the Danish monarchy’s coat of arms?
We hope you enjoy it. If you don’t, blame Prince Andrew, like everybody else does.
*Information correct at time of writing. At time of reading, it might have dropped so far out of the iTunes chart that it is outside by the recycling bins.
Although we’ve come
To the end of the road current series,
Still we can’t let go – because we’ll be back on 19th April with yet more Answer Me This!. So long and adieu, here is Episode 210:
Today we ponder:
the Angel of the North Pet Sounds
sham marriage a different type of big bird Tom Jones
Mel Blanc
emotions vs. money
Matt Willis vs. televisions
Alice Cooper vs. vending machines
Jesus vs. Spongebob Squarepants
Father Christmas on film
Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth
and
Abraham Lincoln.
Plus: we learn the one place where Olly actually keeps quiet; Helen whips ’em out for SPRIIIIIINNNG BREEEEAAAK!; and Martin the Sound Man puts a price on his hand in marriage. But you might as well barter him down to something more realistic, like £20 and a Chocolate Orange.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Celeste from Elephant and Castle about whether you can sell your house without the intervention of an estate agent. Of course you can! But, before you ask, you are probably better off not performing your own laser eye surgery.
There is more to listen to during our absence, because by royal appointment (not really) we’ve released the Answer Me This! Jubilee, a 57-minute romp through the massive numbers of questions you lot send us about Her Maj and the like. Click here to get it.
Don’t forget us while we’re away: keep sending your QUESTIONS, as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Hands up who thinks that in movies, there ought to be more time dedicated to the mundanity of living? Tim Burton ought to spend less time on the fantastical elements of storytelling, and more time satisfying the curiosity of Ryan in Melbourne, who asks:
How does Edward Scissorhands pee?
How does Edward Scissorhands do ANYTHING? Apart from cut hair and sculpt ice, he’s ill-equipped to do anything without serious damage! Anyway, we know that Vincent Price didn’t finish off Edward Scissorhands – hence his death-hands and emo style – so I bet he doesn’t have a bladder, let alone conventional urine-evacuating equipment.* Even if he did, he would have sliced it off at some point during his lonely years in the castle.
But if, for the sake of argument, he does have the usual human formation, I reckon Dianne Wiest would help him. She wouldn’t let him get piss on his hands, because they’d rust up.
*It has been a while since I’ve seen the film, so there might be a comical “Look, Edward’s doing a piss in the garden!” scene which I’ve forgotten.
We all prefer our partners to be shallow, unevolved and un-selfactualised (whatever that is). Don’t we? Well, Sean does:
My girfriend has spent the last six months volunteering as a vet for a donkey and horse charity in Luxor, Egypt. As her trip comes to an end she seems to keep reflecting on how much she has changed and learned about herself.
So answer me this: how do I go about undoing all this personal growth and turning her back into the girlfriend who left for Egypt last September?
Readers, over to you: in the comments, please tell Sean how to transform this spiritually blossomed woman back into a selfish, short-sighted bint. Sorry, donkeys, but you’ve had it good for far too long.
Here’s the latest entry in our apparently weekly new series, ‘Facebook’s fucking up my family‘. It’s from Dave from Plymouth:
Like most technology savvy 34-year-old men, I have a Facebook page, and like many others side the rise of Twitter, I don’t really bother using it anymore.
However, in the last couple of weeks I’ve had two new friend requests. The first was from my mother and the second was from my 9-year-old daughter.
I’m happy to allow my mum to view my page, as she’s unlikely to be too upset by the occasional swearword or drunken photo which may get posted; on the other hand, I’d like to prevent my daughter from having her wonderful image of me crushed, as well as learning that alcohol and rude words are to be in some way encouraged.
Would I be right in refusing my daughter’s friend request, or am I condemned to a lifetime of intricate security and viewing settings as well as constant censorship of my own Facebook page?
You know you can customise your posts so they only get sent to a selection of your friends, right? Try it, it’s easy! You could even set up a ratings system: PG for those which are suitable for the under-12s, 18 for everyone else.
I’m not sure you’ve fully grasped the peril that approaches from the other direction, however. Are you sure you want to be privy to pictures of your mum falling over drunk, her flirty wall conversations with your friends, or her colourful swearbombs being detonated all over your news feed?
Answer Me This! Podcast 